12 July 2008 7:16 PM

Community service for burglars ... murderers will be next

Here is the news, 20 years from now: ‘Government experts are urging that murderers should be given community service where possible, rather than jail terms.

‘The panel pointed out that there was little evidence that prison terms reduced reoffending, as most murderers committed fresh killings soon after release.

‘And packed jails mean that only the most serious offenders can be kept inside.

'The Lab-Con-Lib coalition government’s crash programme to build new prison camps has increased places to 500,000, but overcrowding is still serious...’

Here the bulletin comes to an abrupt end because of a power cut resulting from a wind shortage. Actually, 20 years may be too long.

This week, a body called the Sentencing Advisory Panel (SAP for short) did actually say that convicted thieves, burglars and swindlers should not automatically go to jail.

Their thinking, if it can be so described, is roughly as follows. The prisons are so full that offenders could only go to jail for a short time.

During that time there is no chance of turning them into better people and it doesn’t keep them off the streets for very long. So why bother?

You will have noticed there was no storm of rage from the politicians. They, too, have accepted the half-witted, thought-free ideas that enslave the SAP.

They loftily dismiss the suggestion that convicted criminals should be punished. They whimper that ‘deprivation of liberty is punishment enough’.

They wince fastidiously at the idea that prisons should be seriously unpleasant places run by the authorities.

That is why burglary – which 40 years ago was a rarity and an outrage – has become so common. Why shouldn’t the same thing happen to murder? It already seems to be under way.

Behind all this is the foolish idea that people who knowingly and deliberately do bad things should be ‘rehabilitated’ and ‘helped’.

Any fool knows it is wrong to break into someone else’s home and steal from it. He does it because he thinks he can get away with it, and because he is not afraid of what might happen even if he is caught.

He is laughing at us.

Since these days you have to commit about 50 offences right in front of a CCTV camera before the police will act, those who arrive in our prisons are already experienced, habitual criminals.

It is absurd to think they will be ‘rehabilitated’ by their time in these silly warehouses, run by the convicts and full of drugs.

Prison’s main purpose is to frighten potential criminals into staying within the law. The hundreds of thousands who now live criminal lives do so mainly because they are not afraid, as they once would have been. So we have to be afraid instead.

Bad, Good, Right, Wrong -how would Dave know?

Suckers were taken in by the thousand when Mr David Cameron made his latest speech on right and wrong.

You must have seen the gloopy sighs of praise and wonder from gullible ‘commentators’ who have learned nothing from the 11-year Blair-Brown fraud (remember ‘tough on crime’?). There wasn’t a single specific pledge.

He pretended to attack moral neutrality, saying: ‘Bad. Good. Right. Wrong. These are words that our political system and our public sector scarcely dare use any more.’

I decided to see if he would dare use them himself.

So I asked his Press office if he would care to say if the following were right or wrong, bad or good: taking illegal drugs; owning up to taking illegal drugs and saying it was wrong; living together while not being married; punishing criminals.

And do you know? There was no answer. There was also another moment last week when it was clear that some irresistible force has decided that Mr Cameron has taken on the mantle of Blair, and can do no wrong.

You may remember that some time ago he fired the MP Patrick Mercer from his front bench for being honest about racial bigotry in the Army.

Well, last week another Tory front-bencher, Lord Dixon-Smith, used the phrase ‘n***** in the woodpile’ in a debate in the Lords. There were a few muted squawks. Mr Cameron refused to sack him. And nothing happened.

If Mr Cameron were a conservative, and had serious policies on immigration, the BBC and The Guardian and the rest of them would have torn him to pieces and called him a racist.

So many dogs not barking in the night, and still nobody suspects the truth.

A dead girl and our vain, selfish cyclists

As a cyclist for the past 30 years, I hate cyclists. They think they are so good that the rules don’t apply to them.

They dress themselves up in helmets and ridiculous face-masks to stress how brave and vulnerable they are. They complain (with some justice) that they are treated like dirt by drivers.

But they in turn treat pedestrians like dirt.

They invent slimy, self-serving excuses for riding straight through zebra and pelican crossings – but are glad enough of the protection which red lights give them at junctions.

They ignore ‘no cycling’ signs in parks and swear savagely at anyone who asks them to obey the law.

The words of Jason Howard – who saw Rhiannon Bennett in his path but couldn’t be bothered to slow down and instead yelled: ‘Move! I’m not stopping!’ – sum up these nasty people who think they are a noble movement but are just selfish and vain.

I agree with Rhiannon’s family that a fine (of less than half the price of Mr Howard’s fancy bicycle) is not remotely enough. Justice hasn’t been done.

It seldom is when people are killed on the roads because those who make and enforce the law fear that a moment’s inattention or impatience could one day put them in the dock.

But the real solution is for thousands of cyclists who ride through pedestrian crossings to be fined, again and again and again, until they stop doing it, so that all cyclists stop thinking they are above the law. If the police did what we pay them for, this could easily be achieved.

Childline's charter for sneaks and jobsworths

Esther Rantzen redeems herself by admitting that organisations like Childline have given enormous power to ‘insidious jobsworths’.

She says she had no idea this would happen.

But totalitarians have always encouraged children to inform on their parents, knowing that children have no idea of the hell-black night of suspicion and presumed guilt into which their families can be dragged once the sneaking has been done.

The secret family courts of this country may not be the KGB, but they are pretty terrifying all the same.

* Please don’t be panicked into supporting military action against Iran. This scheme is brought to you by the same morons who brought you the war on Iraq. If we handle Iran sensibly, instead of hysterically, we could turn it into our closest ally in the Middle East.

Your statements on the NSPCC/Childline 'merger' is correct but you have missed out the hugely important and mostly unknown one. That of the Affiliation between the NSPCC and Womens Aid - the politically funded (i.e. taxpayer) lobbying organisation of the Feminist Marxists so beloved of Harridan Hatemen and her sistahs in the Government. These awful women are intent in the destruction of the family - which is the root cause of ALL of the ills of society.

And they are winning - Call me Dave - in order to satisfy the marxists taking over the conservative party is looking to promote more women into the shadow cabinet - why ? Because they are women ! not because they have anything in the way of talent ! He does not see that the NuLab experiment produced a cabinet full of ideological nincompoops when they promoted all of these women (for PC reasons) to their level of incompetence. Note that Harridan herself has not held a post in the cabinet without being moved on (she would have been sacked but the sistah's would not have tolerated that !) and so she has had to be 'elected' into a position into which she cannot be 'removed'.
It strikes me the although NuLab is a political dead horse (as far as doing what is right for the country is concerned) - we are likely to get a NuCon (rather appropriate - don't you think ?) with the same ideolocial idiocy we see now.

However - it does not really matter - the Feminist Marxists hold ever greater sway in the EU - and thanks to Brown - we are going to get what we don't want - whether we like it or not !

"Crop Circle Trogg Man" - yes, Mr Reid-Brown, that's a good summary of Reg Presley's career to date!
But if you read his book, (skip through the first few chapters on the circles if they don't grab you) you may find something rather more interesting.
Whatever your views on the matter, it is a very good read.

True enough - it is but one of many names and titles after all - but this 'Thing' we are perceiving, call it what you will - it IS there. There is a whole lot of misinformation and disinformation mixed in with it all, so one is always trying to get to the heart of the matter - not easy.

Caesarean was the son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. Caesar had been declared a god by the Roman senate, therefore making Caesarean the 'son of god'. Cleopatra had declared herself the reincarnation of the Egyptian goddess Isis, giving Caesarean the name Isu and a similar story to Horus, the original son of Isis. The name Isu crops up in quite a few holy books in the East regarding a white foreigner travelling to India to study the teachings of the Buddha. I hope this gives you enough to go on!

Vikki, you are splitting hairs a little bit. Employers offered less, the less was accepted. Women knew full well the going rate, it would have been shouted at them from the rooftops.
It was not the fault of women but the bosses knew what they were doing, breaking union power (for good or bad).

I am sure there IS a storm coming Mr Khabra - equally I have to admit to not being prepared, confusion rather being my default mode at this time. I am intrigued (very much so) by the reference to 'Caesarean' - I would take the liberty of inquiring further, but please ignore this if it is inappropriate.

'Fortean Times' announced it is doing a piece on the Illuminati next month - in the manner of these things, I suspect it will be a debunking job cleverly made to look like open minded investigation, but we'll see.

I am old before my time, Mr.Williamson, though in recompense I hope I may remain the same age, in a manner of speaking, when others are in their dotage.

Vikki Boynton, the lack in wage rate increase is most likely due to, my favourite hobby horse, the minimum wage. That, and a general decline in demand for secretarial skills undermined by advances in IT, telecommunications and outsourcing. I've myself outsourced a pretty big chunk of admin to Bangalore in recent years.

This will be unpopular, but my general opinion would have to be that men are worth more as employees and less problematic. I would always recommend a female solicitor, book-keeper or credit controller though.

The ideal and best value member of staff is usually a bright and energetic young male who hasn't gone to university, as a result of some problem in their lives such as their parents splitting up. If you keep them in a smarter car than their graduate school friends they can be retained for much longer than average as well.

Mr Reid-Brown, thank you for your praise. To paraphrase Socrates, the fact that I acknowledge I know nothing means I know something.

It is funny that you mention the Illuminati, as I have spent the last couple of weeks being obsessed with them. Nothing used to make much sense but I’ve started to connect the dots. From finding out about the federal reserve and strawman situation, to knowing who Caesarean is. There is a storm coming Mr Reid-Brown, I hope you are prepared for it.

I notice a couple of people reacted rather negatively to Peter Hitchens’ parting comment re: our relations with Iran. They seemed to assume that he meant that by some form of dialogue with their present government we could get it to change its stance towards Israel and the West. Now I am probably being pedantic, but what he actually wrote was

“If we handle Iran sensibly, instead of hysterically, we could turn it into our closest ally in the Middle East.”

I seem also to remember an article PH wrote upon his return from Iran regarding the views and beliefs of many of the Iranian people. Now I readily admit I know nothing of this subject, but is it beyond the realms of possibility that were the Western powers (the USA and to a lesser extent us and the Europeans) to stop threatening Iran, and hence causing its people to band together in common cause against us, and be a little more subtle, Iran might achieve its own, internally inspired regime change?

Surely a better option than the use of Tactile nuclear weapons – covered in fluffy pink material perhaps Mr Williamson?

I hope Peter Hitchens will let us know his more detailed thoughts on the matter

Sorry Mike Wilkinson, I'm ex-Job and nothing I've seen or read will convince me that PCSOs are anything other than a waste of taxpayers' money. They may be very good, motivated people but they are in a 'non-role' with little or no power. So why would anyone pay them 80% of a real cop's salary?

Questions: Why do PCSOs walk around with real police officers and what do they offer in that circumstance? Why do they drive police vehicles? How long before they have their own rank structure and cost us even more money? How many jobs are they taking from sworn officers?
They were envisaged as the 'eyes and ears' of the service. Well, they're not, so get cops back on the streets and retake them from the myriad 'uniforms' currently out there in the guise of wardens (various), 'security' officers, PCSOs et al.

Incidentally, the police service in Scotland - better paid, thanks to Jacqui Smith - were more canny also; they didn't touch PCSOs with a bargepole.

'Big corporations, that wished to turn women into office automatons, rather than nurturing mothers, have also had a huge impact on our selfish society.'

Anyone who works for a Big Corp. knows that they project the same Equality/Diversity sillistuff that the Marxoids do - they subsidise the Stonewall lot as well (Hi Ben Summerskill - remember the West Kent Youth Theatre? You were a fine person and a good actor - what happened?). They love all the Harman type 10 year fully paid maternity/paternity flexible hours stuff because they know it will wipe out small/medium size businesses.

The State/Corporate funded FemiLefties, being genuinely humourless and with no sense of irony or the ridiculous, really do think that they have 'won' because their ideas are right - they are always the monkeys who think they are the Grinder.

And again:

'We live in an age of self-righteous irresponsibility'

The advertisers, with their pure and unambiguous motive (money) know what it is all about - 'Because I'm worth it.' I knew the fair sex had lost it completely when they decided it was worth flying all the way to New York - to go shopping!

Fred Kite refers to a blog by 'An English Detective', Nightjack. I had a quick look at his blog and just wanted to refer PH (and readers) to an article, 'Truncheons to Tazers'. Knowing your oft written thoughts about police kit, I think you will be interested in this piece.

Michael Savell writes of the government's proposals to deter what it rather trendily calls "knife-crime" (presumably what was earlier known either murder or as attempted murder):

"It will be very interesting to see if the authorities will be allowed to take knife thugs into a hospital to view their victims."

Does the Home Secretary, I wonder, intend that such criminals should also be 'frisked' before entering hospital wards, not only for weapons but also for mobile phones, lest the wretched victim be either subjected to further injury or threats or have his distress photographed or filmed?

Better avoid Friday and Saturday nights too, I would think, for such officially sponsored visits, because it is reported that hospital A & E departments have their work cut out at those times anyway dealing with the results of other, more run-of-the-mill, excesses of this land of hope and glory.

Gareth Haines, I agree with a lot you write but
you, as with most blokes are considering the situation as it is, blaming both men and women for the present debacle. Sure, men are hardly perfect and need to sort themselves out but this is very difficult in the light of the fact that it is not women who are being discriminated against, it is men. Every day seems to herald a new law against white, particularly middle class men. The stated aims of all leading feminists were to dispense with marriage by removing fathers from the equation and setting up women in all key positions of society. I can give scores of examples. Feminists have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams with the help of male feminists and men who do not seem to care one way or another what happens to them provided the pub stays open and there's footie on the box at whatever prison they happen to be in at the time.

Gareth Haines, thank you for your response. I think you have nailed it with respect to modern day selfishnes by both mothers and fathers. Personally, whilst I am grateful to the original feminists (Pankhurst etc) for giving women a better stand in society, I am totally against the bra burning, Greenham Common type crusties that a fair amount of women feminists became later on. I'm sorry to say that I do not agree with women in the services where they are actually fighting. I think it makes it very difficult for men to carry out their duties, if they feel they must protect the women in their unit. Also I think the fire service would be better off without women since they are not built as powerfully as a man and I would not wish to rely on them to carry me out of a burning building. I prefer to feel that men will look after women, hold doors for them, give up seats etc and am sad that many men daren't do these simply acts of good manners for fear that a feminist may abuse them for their decency.

I would question Michael Savell's sentence, 'women offered employers their labour for a lot less than the going union rate.' I don't know whether women actually offered to work for less money. I do know one thing that is completely unacceptable which is that I worked for a couple of different companies ten years ago where I was paid £6.50/hr. Ten years later, I am still offered round about the same amount of money. The pay for secretarial type services is absolutely disgraceful. Especially since, apart from usual duties, in many cases I was actively participating in high level decisions and I know that my boss would have not have managed well without me. None of that was ever recognised in my salary. I would like PH to look into this perplexing state of affairs. I would add that I am talking of rates of pay in the country. I am aware that it is better in London. I am though disgusted that the rate is broadly the same now as it was back then.

Thank you G Whitfield. I thoroughly resent this kind of stupidity. I've always had a penknife in my pocket, albeit a tiny one! Just to show how ludicrous things can be, my sister recently travelled via Heathrow. She completely forgot that she had a penknife of her keyring and one in her handbag along with a metal nail file. Despite all the fuss we hear about, no one notice at all and she herself only realised once she'd got off the plane at the end of her journey. Her husband was not so lucky. He had in his luggage, a tiny bottle of eye solution for his contact lenses. This caused a huge fuss and was confiscated! Crazy world! I will check my bag now, thanks!

That said it all - but logic has nothing to do with it. The whole damn post-war social 'revolution' (an Illuminati love, that word - these masonic types are simply in love with the concept, but not through any such nonsensical concern as improving the lives of yer actual Human Beans) is everything to do with being organised and financed into existence and nothing to do with an organic, grass roots sea-change (I am mixing my clichés here).

Vikki Boynton has misunderstood some of my comments regarding marriage.

Firstly, I did not intend to imply that all unhappy couples should simply stay together for the sake of their child.

My point was that people are now so self-righteously selfish, and impulsive, that many simply refuse to accept any personal inconvenience in a relationship, refuse to make any sacrificies for their partner, and have no qualms about simply leaving their wife, or husband, even if they have children together,simply because " I've found someone new" or "I was bored in the relationship".

Previously, couples might actually have considered the children's needs first, before simply fracturing the stable cocoon of a family.

We live in an age of self-righteous irresponsibility, (as feminism enshrined, and almost glorified selfishness, and attacked principles of nobility, and self-sacrifice, and personal responsibility, as is the case with abortion).

My comment about husbands and wives who leave each other, and do not make the efforts that would previously have been made to salvage a young marriage, was to illuminate the fact we no longer regard the creation of life, as the beginning of a lifelong union, between father and mother. (This is why many men and women who do not even wait to be married before having children, and then break up shortly afterwards, and some men run away from their responsibilties, while many mothers deny the father access to the child).

All of these sad situations are the consequence of an "independence" movement, that fails to emphasise the lifelong bond between women who have children, and the father, once enshrined in marriage.

Feminists never realised that women have to "need" men because their children will need fathers.

The feminists felt that, once women could use contraception, and abortion, and have careers, they wouldn't "need" men for anything, and could be completely independent.

They forgot that having dependents, was one of the things that allowed male pride, to be linked to selflessness, and nobility.

Because a man's worth was not judged purely on what he could provide for himself, but on how he could protect, and support, and provide for, his wife, and children.

Once you removed that crucial outlet for masculine altruism,from one soul to another, by cutting the web of dependence that bound us together, then men were cast free, to simply seek personal fulfilment.

That was what I meant about male selfishness. I was not blaming feminism for every selfish act, either of the sexes committ, (consumer society, and the types of "empowerment" femiminism, which actually made women less free, that were useful to advertise products to women, and big corporations, that wished to turn women into office automatons, rather than nurturing mothers, have also had a huge impact on our selfish society).

Vikki asks me if childcare is paid for by the state. Yes, many single mothers on benefits, receive free childcare, or childcare allowances.

And the emotionless, detached care of paid "professionals" who have no natural bond with each child, cannot replace the selfless love, and care, and nurturing of a mother.

The "coldness" of these carers is a symbol of the selfish, icy "coldness" of our modern "empowered" attitude towards children, in the age of liberation. And the coldness which has replaced the warm glow of one human making sacrifices for another.

I didn't say men were justified in "shirking their responsibilties, whether sulkily or otherwise.

I merely pointed out that when the state replaces the father, many feckless men who might otherwise have thought twice before going around impregnating young women, can now do so, secure in the knowledge that the State will rasie their child for them, so why should they need to worry?

This aids those, of both sexes, who wish to live feckless, irresponsible lifestyles, which is why we have such a high rate of young single mothers, and teen mothers, and absent fathers.

You say it is "the world we live in today" that has rendered men redundant as providers. I agree, for example,that the high level of personal taxation in this country, forces many mothers to work, even if they have a partner working full-time also.

But, if you don't think feminism has played a part in driving women away from their children, look at the Government's current tax credit policy for working mothers, which was explicitly designed to punish women who choose to stay at home with the children, by ensuring they lose their tax credit, unless they return to work, six weeks after the birth.

In announcing the policy, feminist former Labour Minister Tessa Jowell famously said stay-at-home mothers were "a problem". That's the attitude of modern feminism.

I fully agree that attacking Iran is in nobody's interests, except maybe the idiots who dreamt up the war in Iraq. (American neocons with strong ties to defence companies and Israel's Likud party). That war helped fuel the sky high inflation and energy prices being suffered today with the Federal Reserve printing something like 4 trillion USD over the past 3 years to help pay for the blunder that was Iraq. Crude will probably shoot to more than $200 if Iran is needlessly attacked. The potential human cost and fallout is obviously even more tragic.

Even if they one day have the capability, why would Iran use a nuclear bomb against Israel or any other country? In no time every Iranian city would be obliterated by Israeli nukes in response. If the Americans' and Israeli's fear is of militant Islamic terrorists getting their hands on a nuke, then Pakistan is probably a potentially bigger threat, especially given that it already possesses nuclear weapons. (Not that I'm saying Pakistan has any plans to use them!)

On cyclists:

Although there are no doubt many arrogant, unpleasant cyclists (as there are such motorists and even pedestrians), it seems harsh to tar ALL cyclists with the same brush. I myself am a cyclist who tries to respect the rules of the road and stays off pavements, etc. I think many cyclists are the same. That chap who ran down the poor girl is probably a vain and unpleasant person who happens to be a cyclist, rather than being that way because he's a cyclist.

"Regarding the responses to my question, I think it's morally irresponsible and a very bad idea to have children with somebody you do not love, and think you want to spend the rest of your life with. I was referring to cohabitants with no dependants."

I struggle with the concept here... Why are our hypothetical couple having sex, if they don't love each other? More importantly, why are they having sex if they are not open to the possibility of children? Do they not realise that might be the result? If a couple are living together, they are likely sleeping together and if they are sleeping together, should not be surprised if children enter the picture (contraception is not 100%). What then? Are our sexually active, cohabiting couple not morally irresponsible, by your own logic, for taking such a risk, however slight?

"It is not a contradiction for Mr Cameron to support marriage whilst refusing to condemn condemn the unmarried living together."

It is a slightly equivocal position, but not necessarily contradictory, no. Though the point, as I understand it, was that Mr. Cameron was hypocritical to pontificate about how we are afraid to use the words right and wrong yet was unwilling to use the words himself regarding cohabitation.

"It's also worth noting that virtually nobody of my generation (mid-20's) can afford to buy a decent house on their own, unless they are earning probably £40k a year or so. Does this mean you force yourself to live with your parents, or rent just because you don't want to get married?"

At 25, I am of your generation, and (for my sins) I live in Essex, in the South, just outside of London. No I can not afford a decent house, but then I can't afford (not that I would want them) a Caribbean cruise or a Rolex watch either - that's life! There are flats on the market here, for less than £100,000 (which means you need to earn around £20,000 to be able to afford it). Okay, it is not a 3-bed semi in a leafy, genteel area, but that was what I could afford - I don't expect to have everything all at once. At some point in the future, I hope to have the 3-bed semi, 2.4 children and a dog etc, but I don't demand it as though it were my birthright. How spoiled our generation is!

If people genuinely can't afford a property (or don't want to take on that level of debt) there are other options; yes, they could (as you suggested) rent or live with parents or they can get a flat-share (allowing them to save for a deposit) or buy a property with a friend. Would that be so bad?

Oh and... where do you suppose single 20-somethings live? If they can't afford a property, are they doomed to living with their parents or forced to succumb to the horrors of renting?

There is something wrong with people living together prior to marriage - it undermines the importance of marriage in society, the momentous, life-changing event becomes a formality. I accept that I am in the substantial minority on this issue, particularly within our generation, but I hold it to be the truth regardless.

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